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Roskilde
Nine dead, 26 injured, a band devastated, and a festival that went on anyway... A feature devoted to the Roskilde tragedy, with some hard questions that should not remain unanswered...
Tekst: Ariën Rasmijn
Publicatiedatum: 04 juli 2000
"[...] We have not yet been told what actually occurred, but it seemed to be random and sickeningly quick... It
doesn't make sense. [...] When you agree to play at a festival of this size and reputation it is impossible to imagine
such a heart-wrenching scenario... [...] There are no words. Devastated, Pearl Jam." - Part of the statement the band made after the tragedy occurred.
Eight people died in the pit, many more got injured, all quite senselessly, during their performance at the Roskilde festival last Friday. They were trampled in the slick mud after losing their footing trying to get forward and reach for the security railing, as apparently there was a sudden rush towards the stage. A technical investigation is underway, but eyewitnesses claim that while the band was playing the song 'MFC' at around 23.30, halfway through the show, it turned out that either the speakers in the back of the venue shut down or the mix was too low. This triggered a rush from a large part of the audience in the back towards the stage.
Bootleg videotape reveals it all went really fast and largely unnoticed. Most people in the audience didn't even
realize what had happened until the band stopped and the tour manager got onstage to plea with them. A visibly tearful
Eddie Vedder (apparently during the show he repeatedly asked the moshing audience to calm down, to no avail) implored
the kids to take three steps back and let security and paramedics start doing their work. Screens next to the podium
showed the lead singer slumped, weeping as the bodies were being pulled out of the audience. The band has now
cancelled the last two remaining shows of their European tour (Rock Werchter, Rotterdam) and band members are
undergoing trauma therapy. No comment yet on what'll be of their North American tour, slated to start next month.
Roskilde itself, however, went on even though The Cure, Oasis, and The Pet Shop Boys cancelled out of respect for the victims and even called for an all-out discontinuation of the festival, much to the dismay of the organizers, who apart from empty sloganeering ("Life is stronger than death") had a somewhat defensible reason to go on with it, claiming that it is logistically impossible to have 70.000 visitors (largely from outside of Denmark) leave promptly in an orderly fashion. They would rather let the festival run its course and have the people leave when they originally planned to. A memorial was held the next morning at the site of the tragedy, and several one-minute silences, setlist dedications, and flower placements had been observed. But that'll never make up for anything.
All that remains now are utter shock, disbelief, and a couple of hard questions to be pitched at the organizers of this
much-loved grand dame among festivals. Like, why wasn't there any padding on the floor commonplace at many European
festivals to cover the mud in the first place? Why weren't there more exits up front, besides the photographers' pit?
Maybe it's time for the folks at Roskilde to start thinking about the safety/scale-equation? Perhaps a smaller
festival in the future could leave more room for more elaborate safety measures to be invested in (even though padding
on the floor is the least they could have done, it could very well have prevented this tragedy from happening). Better
yet... What about standard safety guidelines for ALL European festivals? Who'll stand up and make legislation revoking
all licenses from promoters who half-ass on the safety of the public? Can't cut it because you "barely break even" with
your festival? Fuck you. Have the people who advertise on your premises be it Coca-Cola OR Amnesty - chip in and
keep the consumer trap both of you are running at least from being a deadly one. You know, I always hated that
multiple cross-shaped pathway at Werchter (another festival that uses floorpads), running from the tower right through
the audience, cutting it into equal sections, to the stage. Now it makes real sense to me...
Our thoughts and prayers are with everybody involved, especially the families and friends of the deceased. Also with
Pearl Jam, a band whose sincere concern with the safety of their fans at concerts has been reported on many times.
The organizers, responsible because this happened on their premises, should be held accountable for negligence and not
hide behind the benevolent image of their festival. This should never, ever happen again.
http://www.kindamuzik.net/achtergrond/709/roskilde/498/
Meer op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/709
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